AuthorTopic: So, how much it's gonna cost? (Read 33635 times)

AGS is also free only for NON-commercial use, I believe. It's been a while since I read the faq, though.

Still, that's a very good point. It's a lot of hassle to try to decide on something that's fair for everyone, so give the man some time to think. Or email him personally, which is what he suggested in the first place.

(And yes, there are some of us to whom $20 *US* is a lot of money.)

I think Mnemonic is right to look at licensing on a case-by-case basis. Rich people can afford a lot, poorer people can't, and often need those tools in order to achieve something worthwhile. So charge more to rich people.

Or he could just put a donation button on the site, if it's worded appropriately.

"Rich people can afford a lot, poorer people can't, and often need those tools in order to achieve something worthwhile. So charge more to rich people." And how he's gonna tell ones from others? Check their bank accounts? No, seriously. If you ask me, I don't think there is a single rish person over here, or will be anytime soon. Rich guys don't mess with amateur engines. However, if you or Mnemonic feel like subsidising poors by taking from richs, why not chose something a lit'l bit more radical than game engine charges?

Okay... many things have been said in this thread, so let me describe my point of view.

Let's summarize the facts:

Fact one: WME is a relatively immature product; it has been released about three months ago. I didn't have a clear idea of licensing the engine back then and I obviously don't have it still. That's why I didn't answer Zorro's "simple" question and that's also why I welcome a discussion like this because I'm curious about people's opinions on this matter (I'd prefer a less "heated" discussion though...).

Fact two: I'm most probably not giving WME away for free for commercial use. I have my reasons for it and I won't discuss that because it's my decision.

OK now, what are the "licensing" possibilities?1) Give the product away for free for any use, including commercial. That's the case of AGS and Chris Jones deserves a deepest respect for that. Oh well, I'm probably not that generous though, so I decided to complicate my life by licenses and stuff. It's not a matter of greed, as Zorro seems to think It's (among others) a feel of appreciation of one's work. Fortunately, all the people intending to eventually "go commercial" seem to be ready to pay a certain amount for a product which allows them to build and run the game, so no problem here. Let's move on.

2) A fixed price. Zorro, you said the Sludge pricing seems reasonable to you. Well, not to me. Not that I don't think Tim deserves those 50 bucks, actually I think he deserves more than that. But I don't like you have to pay the price even if you are going to make a simple freeware game. Of course, I can understand this scheme - many people start their games, not many finish them. No difference in the Sludge world. You may like it, I don't. You've mentioned other commercial programs several times, such as the Visual C++ (which indeed I had to buy to make WME). You seem to like this approach, "here, we sell you a tool, do whatever you want with it". The problem is those products are way too expensive for this approach to work. Yep, VC++ is far from cheap, so is Photoshop, 3DS Max, etc. Also, and more importantly, they sell many more units than any game engine ever will.

3) A percentage of the game's final price. This is what I'm leaning towards to the most. It

3) A percentage of the game's final price. This is what I'm leaning towards to the most. [...]Of course, this is the administratively most complicated case, but like I said, it's *fair* (or at least I think so).

I share your point of view - it's fair but rather complicated and finally founded on trust between you and the authors (how many games were sold, ...) !

Actually I've got no problem with this kind of agreement, I like it. I just hope you won't be "tricked" that way.

Or you would have to found a "company" and only this company would be authorized to sell the games, hmmmm... but I'm quite sure most people would not like this idea.

I always thought the percentage thing was obvious to all? OF course that's the way - if it's free for non-commercial games and not free for commercial ones, and the price will be based on specific cases, well then - claiming a certain percentage is the way to go (man, my old math teacher would be proud of me).

As I see it, if I had created something as big and professional as WME, I'd like for a lot of people to use it, but I'd also like to think it was worth buying. So I'd give it away for non-commercial use, and try not think too much about the money, or I'd go nuts in my dreams of glory and fortune. And if someone nice like Brassfire made a small commercial game, and it didn't sell too well, then I'd actually feel pretty lousy if I took a lot of money for the engine. But if a team of pro game designers used my engine and made a 15-language multi-DVD bestseller and made $20 million in profits off it, I'd feel like my contribution to that succes was quite enough to demand a portion of it, and that would be a hell of a lot more than 100$.

I say we let Mnemonic work on this without bitching so much over the licencing. I'm pretty sure he's as curious as anyt of us to see, in time, what projects can be done with it, and how many pro game designers will come to like it so much that they will start using it for commercial games..

So, the "hobby" turned out to be an enterprise after all. Even before actually proving itself. Well, as I've already said, I wish the best luck to Mr.Mnemonic. As of myself, I'll try something else - just don't feel like fighting his lawyers trying to prove I've sold more than I reported.

Okay, good luck to you too. I'm sure you'll find a tool which will suit your needs better than WME. And although you sound a little bit too paranoid for my taste , I think I can understand your concerns.

If you honestly think about making that engine a success for you, you will have to make a price. I have seen this site first time today. And the first thing I hated was the line: ... commercial ... it will cost $$$.That's bad style. And without that forum and that topic here I would have been gone forever already.

Let me write some thoughts down that I can add here.

Years ago I saw 3D Gamestudio Adverts. Looking closer into it I found out that they have a license system. I wrote an email to them which contained lots of the arguments that Zorro wrote above. Several others must have done that or they may not have been able to sell their commercial and professional engine - what ever it was - they quickly have changed their policy and are now proudly announcing on their website - NO License !!! Making it one of the main arguments to buy their development system. Actually they now leave the impression that it would be the most terrible thing in the world to beg for license fees

Does anyone here know Blaxxun? Blaxxun Contact is a plugin for the Internet Explorer that is used by 3D-Chat-Communities like Cybertown. I asked them for their price (2 years ago) because I planned a Community like that. I got the answer (in other words): That depends how successful you are!!! $50000 if you have up to 500 People online at a time - if more then the price is higher too.That means: I have the work and the ideas and they get the money. And if I work harder and have better ideas they get even more.Okay - one should not talk bad about the dead - meanwhile they are broke - and you can imagine why ...

There are several tools for Gamedevelopers on the Market and there are new ones just recently coming and going. 3D Gamestudio, Blitz3D, Dark Basic Pro, DIV, Jamagic, GBasic, etc. are the astablished ones I know. Gamestudio costs between $200 and $1000, depending what sort of game you want to develop. The others are between $80 and $180 as far as I know.

I bought them all and still have not found THE Engine to develop my Community. Each lacks things the others have - and no-one is able to fulfil all needs. A combination of the best features of all would be perfect. Anyway; I have my program nearly finished learning a lot making several parts of it for every system.

Coming back to price-policies:With all upgrades 3D-Studio cost me about $1500 by now. And there is the new upgrade out (maybe THE thing I am really looking for) but it would cost me another $500 - making it $2000 for me, summed up. Someone who buys it new today gets it for $1000. You see - there is no justice. I have supported the developer for years - helping him to be still alive - and the thanks I get is: I would have payed twice the price for the same product that a newbie pays for it.This shows that there is no model that suits for everyone.

But one thing is for sure:If you start with a license system you will not make a penny.What you (in my view) can do is: Make your product better than the mentioned above, make its language simple (like) BASIC and fix a price between $100 and $150.Make that public on the net and be sure that nearly EVERYONE - and every wannabe gamedeveloper - that has bought Blitz or Dark or Jamagic or Gamestudio or whatever will buy your Engine, too.Add a development environment - sort of a WorldBuilderTool thats easy to use, fits to your system and maybe converts from others like Quake3, VRML, Unreal, Half Life or others - and you can make the price $49 higher.Add an easy to use Model-Editor, that supports Bone-Animation, converts from B3D, X, 3DS, VRML97 etc. and that fits into your system and you make another $30 to $50 from each sold download.

I will watch the development - and will buy for sure if its something like that. And if not I will use the ones I already have or look for something else.

There are several tools for Gamedevelopers on the Market and there are new ones just recently coming and going. 3D Gamestudio, Blitz3D, Dark Basic Pro, DIV, Jamagic, GBasic, etc. are the astablished ones I know.

Well, Wintermute Engine is an "adventure creator" and not a programming language (althought it has a scripting language to create more complicated things). So the programs you mentioned (like Dark Basic, GBasic) are no comparable to WME (like mad, sludge, agast, AGS etc are).

Coming back to price-policies:With all upgrades 3D-Studio cost me about $1500 by now. And there is the new upgrade out (maybe THE thing I am really looking for) but it would cost me another $500 - making it $2000 for me, summed up. Someone who buys it new today gets it for $1000. You see - there is no justice. I have supported the developer for years - helping him to be still alive - and the thanks I get is: I would have payed twice the price for the same product that a newbie pays for it.This shows that there is no model that suits for everyone.

What this has to do with Wintermute Engine and mnemonic. Does he asked you 2000$ without you have FIRST earned a lot more by using his engine?

But one thing is for sure:If you start with a license system you will not make a penny.What you (in my view) can do is: Make your product better than the mentioned above, make its language simple (like) BASIC

Make the language like Basic? For what? Make the engine less powerfull?

and fix a price between $100 and $150.Make that public on the net and be sure that nearly EVERYONE - and every wannabe gamedeveloper - that has bought Blitz or Dark or Jamagic or Gamestudio or whatever will buy your Engine, too.

And as far as the price, I don't think that could work. I'm a amateur adventure developer (one of the 1000s in the world) and I'm using this engine 'cause it's free for my free adventure. When someday I decide to create a commercial product then I will gladly pay for the engine but NOT NOW.

I will watch the development - and will buy for sure if its something like that. And if not I will use the ones I already have or look for something else.

Other adventure engine out there mad, AGS, sludge, lixoo (not completed) and visionaire.

PS. I still don't understand if you are looking for an adventure engine or just found this program and complain about it's licence when nobody asked you any money. You keep talking in your post about programs that are NOT comparable to WME or the others engines out there, while you said NOTHING about adventure games. You also talked about an engine to "create a community"?!?!? I think that you are in the wrong place 'cause what WME does (and very well) is to help you create adventure games and nothing else.

What's the problem here? That if you decide to make a game and earn some money then mnemonic doesn't deserve anything?

Read it all - no-one talked about nothing !

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Make the language like Basic? For what? Make the engine less powerfull?

Come off it - Maybe I didn't get the secrets inside yet - but checking the 2 examples I didn't see anything that cannot be done better with one of the mentioned Tools.

For you as amateur developer that may go commercial I admit, I wouldn't have a solution (remember - I was only dropping some thoughts into the discussion, as I wrote! It's Mnemonics business how its handled in the end) - but Microsoft or the producers of the hardware of your computer don't care either if you use your computer for fun or business - you at least have to pay for some sort of system (a fixed price that you know before you work or play with it - not one depending on what you do)

I did mention what I want to produce - 3D-Online-Chats - and I don't care if it's done with an adventure-engine or an engine based on BASIC or Javascript or a 3D-Shooter-engine or whatever, as long as it is working reliable in the end and the program is easy to devolop with - and especially if the price to buy the engine is right in my view (means: not too expensive to make a test - not too big of a loss if I put it forever into the bookshell after 10 days).

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PS. I still don't understand if you are looking for an adventure engine (you said nothing about it in you post) or just found this program and complain about it's licence when nobody asked you any money

I think that's anserwed above now - besides the licence thing.If you buy a Hammer (a tool in the far sense as a 3D-Engine) you know what it costs you to use it. No-one comes and says: you hammered more than 1000 nails - I want more money then.And the descendants and grandchildren of the inventor of the hammer do not still want a licence fee for that outstanding invention which it was at its time - as may be a 3D-engine nowadays - especially not depending on what and how many times it's used for.That's what makes a licence based on selling figures ridiculous And that's what makes people that do not know a fixed price for their product and are anxious to talk about it freely, suspect

If you buy a Hammer (a tool in the far sense as a 3D-Engine) you know what it costs you to use it. No-one comes and says: you hammered more than 1000 nails - I want more money then.

Well, I don't think that you can compare a hammer whith a computer program.

A few points about the fixed-price:1)As I said I am an amateur adventure developer that one day I want to go commercially. If the engine was costing money for an amateur free adventure then I would have used another engine. But now I can use this engine for free and when in the future I (hope to) go commercially I will still use this engine because I will already know it. So the free-engine for free-adventures is a very good advertisment.2)Let's say that the engine had a fixed price of about 200$. If I buy the engine and create a commercial product and earn 5million$ then this sounds fair to you? All engines out there costs a lot of money (for example the Quake3 engine costs a few thousands $). Do you want this engine to cost (for example) 10.000$ even if you create a product that sells 100 copies for 40$? With a current licence you will not loose any money! (Ofcource you have to trust the engine developer and have some kind of contract with him about the licence and the price.)

And a fact: Big companies like adobe, microsoft etc can have a fixed (expensive... check vc++, photoshop etc) price because they are BIG companies. A 26 years old person (mnemonic) that creates a difficult and complicated program like an adventure engine (that uses Direct3D for it's rendering core) cannot sell it for a low fixed price and cannot afford to sell it for a big fixed price either (like the big comperitors do: try to ask to buy the engine of a commercial game and you will be amazed of how much it's going to cost you.). So a case-by-case is a lot better.

but Microsoft or the producers of the hardware of your computer don't care either if you use your computer for fun or business

that's right. they don't care. i can understand your point of view, but please have a look at the adventure developer community. how many of them are really creating commercial games? I could understand if Mnemonic said: "uh, I want $$$ and I don't mind if you just want to create a freeware game!", but I'm happy he doesn't, although almost ALL these games are freeware.

And most of them never would even look into a new engine, that comes up with "pay $$$$ and start to create your own adventure!", that's the point!

I understand your arguments, but anyway I prefer the percentage system. Earning $1.000.000 with my adventure, I even would buy a ticket, fly to Mnemonic, invite him for lunch and drinks and hand him a suitcase with money. I wouldn't for Bill...